“Zounds, man!” he cried, leaping from his chair as if I had pricked him with a sword’s point, “do you know everything?” Of course, I modestly disclaimed the charge, and begged him to sit down and be at his ease again; but he began to walk the floor of the small snuggery where I had my supper served, biting his lip and giving a very fair imitation of a man too deeply enraged to be able to swear it off easily. Naturally, I was curious to know how I had unwittingly stirred the mud in the depths of his soul-pool, but I would not question him. Apart from having no special claim upon his confidence, I knew he would tell me of his own accord when the rage-pot became hot enough to boil over. But the way in which he began to tell me was with a sober question. “Mr. Page,--Captain Page, I should say,--for the honor of the king’s service you must advise me how you came to know a thing which, I am solemnly assured, has never been mentioned outside of Sir Henry Clinton’s cabinet. If we have traitors that near to us, we must know it.” Now I was able to laugh at him and once more to beg him to sit down and to compose himself. “I know nothing; less than nothing, Lieutenant Castner,” I protested. “What did I say to stir you so?” “You do know!” he insisted. “I saw it in your eyes when you wished that I might not have to wear the uniform of Mr. Arnold’s Loyal Americans. I must know how you found out!” I laughed again. “So you are to wear it?” I asked. “I’m sure I could not desire a better fellow officer. Yet I think you need not borrow trouble in advance, if it be Mr. Arnold you object to.” He sat down and rested his elbows on the table, and tried to look me through and through with eyes that were only meant to see out of, and to be read by others. “More mysteries,” he fumed. And then he added: “They are dangerous, Captain, most peculiarly dangerous for a man in your situation.” “This is no mystery,” I replied boldly, never letting him loose the eyehold for an instant. “Have you never heard that Mr. Arnold’s health is most precarious? It is, I promise you; every one on the other side of the Neutral Ground knows it well. He will drop off very suddenly some day, Mr. Castner. I may go so far as to say, in strictest confidence to you, that I marked some of the symptoms while I was with him to-day.” “You surprise me,” he said; but I saw that the nail was holding. Then he asked in a tone that was almost sympathetic, what the malady was. “It has never been written out in any doctor’s book, I believe,” I rejoined gravely. “It is an obscure thing, coming suddenly and tying a man in knots, so that at the last he can move neither hand nor foot.” I had him fairly mesmerized by this time, and his voice was hushed when he said: “And you say Mr. Arnold has this--this disease?”